Category: Tony Onslow

Only Once a Blue
(Part 1)
Robert Jamieson
Hailing from the famous football nursery in The Vale of Leven, Robert Jamieson was to learn the rudiments of the association game surrounded by, what were at the time, some of the finest players in the kingdom. He was born on 7 September 1867 at 199 High Street, Dumbarton, the child of Robert, a journeyman fitter, and his wife Elizabeth. The head of the household was away on the day of the 1871 census, but Elizabeth was recorded, along with her four children, living at 6 Clyde Street in Dumbarton. On the completion of his education, Rob Jamieson followed his father into the engineering trade, and started playing at junior level before signing for Dumbarton in the summer of 1886.
He was in the side which reached the Scottish Cup final after beating Queens Park 2-1 at Hampden Park, and was selected at left wing when Dumbarton returned to the same venue to face Hibernian on...

The First World War had been raging for over a year when the funeral cortege of 17-year-old Robert Goldie brought the small Ayrshire town of Hurlford to a halt. Born in Liverpool, he was the son of well-known local man who had once played football for Everton.
Hugh Goldie was born, 10th of February 1874, at 32, The Vennal in the Ayrshire town of Dalry where his Father Hugh worked as a Coal Miner while his Mother Janet, had worked in a Textile Mill. The family later moved to the Riccarton area of Kilmarnock where Hugh, after completing his education, began work in a Bonded Store Warehouse while playing football for a local club, Hurlford Thistle. He represented them, on the 13th of February 1892, in the Ayrshire Cup Final that was played at Rugby Park, Kilmarnock but their opponent’s, Annbank, beat them 3-0. In July of the that year Hugh Goldie married local Textile Worker Grace McGinn and the couple...

When Everton reached the FA Cup final in 1906 their opponents, Newcastle United, had previously done “league double” over them and were favourites to lift the trophy. The Merseyside club had reached this stage of the contest twice before and had been beaten on each occasion. This time however, it was to be “third time lucky” as the trophy found its way to Goodison Park. Playing for Everton that day, at left back, was a man who, in many ways, epitomised the type of individual who shaped the development of Victorian Liverpool. His name was John Crelley and he was descended from a family of Seafarers.
His Grandfather, also named John, had moved to Liverpool from Wigtownshire in Scotland where he married Kilmarnock born Margaret Clerk at the church of St John the Baptist in Toxteth. The year was 1846. The couple first “set up” home in nearby Grafton Street before moving to 5 Pluto Street in Kirkdale. They were living...

Jack Brearley, a Prisoner at Ruhleben.
Located beneath the dark smoking chimneys of the gigantic Spandau Munitions Factory on the out skirts of Berlin, the harnessed horse racing track at Ruhleben was hurried turned in to an internment camp for the 5,000 or so British civilians who found themselves trapped inside Germany due to the outbreak of World War 1. The game of association football was still in its infant stages and several of the men held captive, former Professional Football Players, had answered an advertisement to come, as Trainers, and help improve the standard of the game on Mainland Europe. Liverpool born Jack Brearley was 1 of 4 former Everton players detained by the German Authorities but he had played for several other clubs before arriving at Goodison Park.
Records show that he was baptised,13th of February 1876, at the church dedicated to St Nathaniel at Edge Hill in Liverpool and was the 2nd child born in to the family home...